Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Weinstein.
Jessica, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I became involved in DPA in 2013 during a tour I was doing at Community Beer Company. While there, it happened to be the monthly Dallas Pets Alive! event as well and I was in LOVE with a dog named Annie and kept going back to her, but she wasn’t dog-friendly and I wasn’t really looking to adopt anyway. I guess because I kept finding my way back to the dogs a volunteer finally approached me and told me about a dog who had just finished board and train and was in need of a foster after the event. Well, I figured we had space, so might as well bring him home. Benji had been around almost a year by then but was adopted in about 1.5 months after I got him! He’s now named Captain and was “the best Christmas present ever!” to his FURever best friend.
Then, an email went out asking for more volunteers and I told them to put me wherever they needed the most help and I became the first “Foster Coordinator”. At that time DPA was split into two teams for Foster and Medical and after the Medical Director stepped down they became one and I became Co-Foster/Medical Director with another amazing volunteer. When she stepped down I became the solo Foster/Medical Director. Then as we just kept growing there become the realization that the entire “animal” side of the organization needed some restructuring so I offered one of our awesome volunteers a “promotion to take my place and she jumped in and I moved to Canine VP. Then as our cat program grew and needed more support, the cat and dog program united and I became Animal Operations VP.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
We are always in need of more fosters and volunteers to continue our growth. As a volunteer-based organization, we absolutely cannot operate without continually increasing our foster and volunteer bases. The more foster homes we have, the more animals we can save. But we have to have enough volunteers to support those fosters as well so it’s a constant need for both at all times. We have a great community, family even, of fosters and volunteers, we are just always looking to make that family bigger.
There are also challenges to ensure we have funding to support the animals we pull. Our goal is to focus on pulling the animals that need the most help, the overlooked, the most urgent, those are the ones we strive to help. I’ve probably said it 1000 times, we aren’t breed specific, we’re need specific, pulling those that need us most. That generally means some big medical bills to get those animals all the care they need, and that’s ok, but non-profits always need funding to continue their work and we are no different. We’ve been lucky enough to have a great network of supporters and donors, so I can only be thankful and hopeful for the continued support!
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Dallas Pets Alive! – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Dallas Pets Alive is a volunteer-based, non-profit, rescue organization. Our mission is to make Dallas a no-kill city by providing the resources, education, and programs to eliminate the killing of companion animals.
I think one of the most important ways we are able to work toward that goal is by being both proactive and reactive. We are proactively working toward decreasing shelter intakes by offering programs like TNR and PASS. TNR stands for Trap, Neuter, Return and those volunteers manage community cat colonies to get everyone altered, vaccinated, ear-tipped, and released back to their community where they are most happy, thus reducing the population and preventing increased intake of “stray” cats. When TNR finds cats or kittens that are too young for release, too sick, too injured, or too social, then we bring them into our adoption program so they never see the shelter. Our PASS program stands for Positive Alternatives to Shelter Surrender. This group of volunteers works to offer citizens that feel they need to surrender their pet to the shelter options such as help with veterinary needs, training needs, temporary boarding, and suggestions on pet-friendly housing. This allows people faced with a hard decision to instead receive the support they need to keep their family members at home and not enter the shelter.
We work reactively by pulling animals that do find their way into the shelter into foster care, sending them on transports, having temporary fosters step up to help kittens too young for shelter adoption have a place to stay until they’re ready with our borrow program, our upcoming neonatal program called Little Whiskers. Our Little Whiskers program is about to launch and will support our TNR efforts and the shelter with caring for neonatal kittens and puppies that need round the clock care during a critical time in their lives that will allow them to have their best chance to grow big and strong to become adoptable. Our ever-growing Transport program allows fosters that can’t long-term foster pull animals to send to other rescues or shelters in other areas of the country, even Canada, where they’re pet demand outweighs their supply thus moving more animals out of Dallas Animal Services faster so we can pull more.
The combination of combating the overpopulation problem from both ends through these innovative programs I think sets us apart from others and makes me so proud. I love to see such a huge group of like-hearted people working to evolve and think outside the box about how we can save even more lives. Such a strong, passionate, selfless group of people constantly stepping up for each other to work together to step up for the animals, it’s truly inspiring.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We are also working to create a program which will enable us to help more dogs that may need a bit more behavioral help. We will begin working on this program and partnering with professional trainers to offer classes to our fosters on various topics so we can empower fosters and provide them with the knowledge and confidence to take a dog that might need more socialization, decompression, etc. than the average foster. This program will fill a gap that is much needed at the Dallas shelter, which has a difficult time adopting out large, behaviorally needy dogs. We hope by filling this gap, we can help DAS reach a 90% live release rate.
We have also begun work toward building a physical facility in 2020 in an effort to save even more lives and offer even more available for our community to find their new best friend and family member. You can learn more about helping us Reimagine Rescue by visiting https://dallaspetsalive.org/buildabetterway/.
Pricing:
- Kittens $150, Puppies $250
- Cats $100, Dogs $200
- Senior Cats $50, Senior Dogs $100
- Senior Cat for Senior Citizen $35, Senior Dog for Senior Citizen $50
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dallaspetsalive.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dallaspetsalive/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DallasPetsAlive/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DallasPetsAlive
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
